Introduction to Data Analysis with R

Day 1: Welcome to the workshop

Selina Baldauf

Freie Universität Berlin - Theoretical Ecology

March 4, 2025

Who am I?

💻 Scientific programmer @theoretical ecology group
🎓 PhD in dryland ecology
👩‍🏫 Teaching R, Git, good scientific practice, …

I’m using a lot for …

… data analysis

… ecological modelling

… writing documents/websites/presentations

…. workflow automation

…

Who are you?

Who are you?

Who are you?

Workshop topics

Image adapted from Wickham & Grolemund: R for Data Science

Day1 Introduction to R and RStudio and data import

Day2 Data transformation and visualization with the tidyverse

Day3 Cleaning data, statistical tests, good practice and AI tools

Day 4 Bring your own data

Day 5 Bring your own data + Q&A (optional)

Schedule and Organization

📅 03.03.2025 - 04.03.2025 from 🕘 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.
📅 10.03.2025 - 11.03.2025 from 🕘 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.
📅 17.03.2025 🕘 9 a.m. - 12 a.m.
🍜 ~ 12 a.m. - 1 p.m., ☕ in between
📌 We will meet in the General meeting on Webex


1. Input sessions

  • Presentation and demonstration of a topic + examples

2. Tasks

  • Solve them in small groups

3. Joint discussion of tasks & questions

Material

  • All material can be found on the workshop’s website

    • Presentations, Tasks, Solutions, Additional resources

  • You can download slides and R Scripts from there

  • Website will stay online after the workshop

Bring your own data

On the last workshop day, you can work with your own research data. I will also provide some real life data sets from different topics.

Learning by doing

  • Get started using R for your own analyses

  • Use any of the methods from the course or try new things, …

  • Present/discuss your results, questions and problems at the end of the day

  • Add your name and some details on what you plan to do in this joint table

Before we get started I

  • Help each other if possible

  • Have an eye on the chat and on the time

  • All questions and comments are welcome

  • If possible, please turn on your camera

  • Feedback is welcome (Evaluation at the end of the workshop)

Before we get started II

Did anyone have problems installing R and RStudio?


Download and install R from https://cran.r-project.org

Download and install RStudio from https://www.posit.co

Before we get started III

How to use Webex teams

  • General channel for our joint meetings and chat
  • Groups 1-4 for solving tasks jointly
    • Group spaces have their own chat and meetings
    • Ask questions in the chat, share screenshots, share your screen and talk

Now you (10 min)

Get to know your team

  • Go into your groups and start a meeting there
  • Introduce yourself to your team (2 minutes for everyone)
    • What is your PhD about?
    • Which tools did you use so far for data analysis?
    • Which types of data analysis do you need?
  • Come back to the general meeting after 15 mins